Haze in a scene obscures details and other information in the scene. For instance, the haze present in an outdoor scene which is characterized by heavy smog, fog, drizzle, smoke or other airborne particulate matter can obscure, and in extreme cases, hide objects in the scene. Distant objects suffer from the effects of haze more than closer objects since haze tends to be additive with distance. Thus, outdoor images tend to suffer from the effects of haze more than indoor images. Haze is possible, though, in many scenes depending on environmental factors too numerous to enumerate herein. As a result, in these images of hazy scenes, information regarding the scenes might be degraded or even lost.
Haze-induced information loss causes the performance of some image processing applications to suffer. For instance, object recognition applications may require more processing time; more robust algorithms, multiple images (or frames thereof for sequential images) of the captured scene, apriori geometric information of the scene, etc. to function properly. Thus, whereas a face-recognition application might recognize detect, identify, track, etc. a face with one particular frame of a haze-free sequential image, it might take that same algorithm several (or more) frames from a similar, but hazy, sequential image to recognize the face. Haze also affects the performance of remote sensing applications, surveying applications, and other geo-physical applications because of the predominance of outdoor images processed by these applications. Should the haze be of sufficient thickness, these algorithms might fail to perform their intended functions altogether.